Category Archives: Loss Limit

Casino Watch Focus has repeatedly reportedon a unique protection that used to protect Missouri families from devastating gambling loss known as the Loss Limit. This protection would only allow any one person the ability to purchase $500 in gambling chips every two hours. This law protected families for most of Missouri’s legalized gambling era until it was defeated with a well-orchestrated and funded ballot initiative. The leading argument was to allow for an expanded opportunity to bring in high rollers to Missouri. Once the Loss Limit was removed though, it also opened the door for more money to be lost by the everyday local gambler and in doing so, it put more families at risk. The removal of the Loss Limit has apparently not been enough for the casino industry as they have now pushed and succeeded at passing legislation that will allow loans up to $10,000 to gamblers. An online sourceprovides some key information to how this may hurt those with addiction:

Missouri casinos will be able to loan gamblers at least $10,000 after Governor Nixon allowed a bill to become law.

Community Counseling Center Therapist Rick Strait said, “Some of the clients I work with, I see this putting them at a greater risk for depression and anxiety, and I think it’s going to have a very negative impact on those addicted.”

Those that are true “high-rollers” will have no need for such a credit line. To them, it wont really be enough for them to matter much. However, casinos offering credit lines up to $10K to the average gambler can cause serious problems. The online source explains that the loans must be paid back quickly, so the casinos will use some discretion when it comes to credit worthiness, but if someone needs a line of credit and can qualifying for an on the spot loan instead of them needing to leave the casino to obtain funds and having a cooling off period to rethink their decision, then it opens the door for all kinds of financial burden on families including the potential for suicide:

Representatives from the Missouri Gaming Commission said the loans must be paid back quickly.

“It has to be by statute a zero percent loan and it has to be due within 30 days the loan has been taken out,” said Grewach.

“If they can’t pay it in 30 days , the anxiety and desperation it may cause, it may cause somebody to have suicidal thoughts…’there’s no way I can pay this back now, I borrowed $10,000 and can’t pay it back; I don’t know the consequences of not paying it, is it going to be collections or is this going to put their house or bank account in jeopardy as well,” said Strait.

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Casino Watch Focus has reported many times that even though casino gambling is legal in Missouri, the legislature has taken many steps to safeguard its citizens from the dangers of gambling. The Legislature successfully prevented all legislative attempts at removing a unique safeguard, the $500 loss limit, which essentially caped the amount of money that was able to be gambled and lost at one time. The loss limit and other safeguards existed until the casino industry waged an expensive ballot initiative that removed it. One past legislator, who was known for accepting large amount of money from the casino industry and in turn, proposing countless bills to remove these safeguards, was Rep. Shannon Cooper. His replacement, Rep. Scott Largent, appears to have picked up where Rep. Cooper left off. The St. Louis Post Dispatch is reporting that Rep. Largent has managed to get an amendment into a bill that would allow loans at casinos. This move appears to be politically unfavorable to his colleagues and it creates serious pitfalls for problem gamblers:

House Financial Institutions Committee added the change onto a banking bill Wednesday with no debate. Committee members endorsed it by a 13-1 vote, sending the measure to the full House after the Rules Committee approves it.

Gamblers who pass a credit check would be able to borrow money and exchange it for electronic tokens and chips for wagering.

Jamilah Nasheed, a St. Louis Democrat, said lawmakers should try to help protect problem gamblers from themselves. Nasheed voted for the bill but now says she would have voted “no” if she had known what the amendment did.

“I made a mistake,” Nasheed said. “I don’t think gamblers should take out loans. You have gamblers who are addicted. It hurts their family. They lose their property. The divorce rate is high.”

Passage in the House would send the bill to the Senate, which has been less inclined to pass gambling bills. In fact, the sponsor of the underlying bill, Sen. Ron Richard, R-Joplin, wasn’t unhappy to learn of the credit amendment.

Casino Gambling was originally passed in 1992 with multiple safeguards in place. The original plan was to simply allow a short, two-hour riverboat cruise on the Missouri or Mississippi river, which would allow for select and controlled gambling. Now, virtually every aspect of what Missouri citizens originally voted for has been stripped clean, leaving full-blown casino gambling, on land, with no loss limits. This bill would remove one of the last safeguards and expose Missouri families to serious gambling problems. The Post Dispatch continues:

The credit ban was also part of the original law. Under the bill, customers would have to qualify for a line of credit of at least $5,000. Bill proponents say that would weed out those with gambling addictions and others who couldn’t afford to go into debt to gamble. But critics say casinos entice people to wager more than they can afford. “Any time you make it easier for people who have gambling problems to increase their debt, then you make the problem worse for them,” said Keith Spare of the Missouri Council on Problem Gambling Concerns.

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In the fight over the fate of the President Casino, Pinnacle Entertainment finally won a round. A state appeals court in Kansas City on Tuesday sided with the casino company in a lawsuit filed last fall against Missouri casino regulators. In its order, the panel called the Gaming Commission’s approach “confusing,” and said “such confusion raises concern that this was a contested case without sufficient process.” It sent the matter back to the commission, “for further proceedings.”

The ruling has no direct bearing on the Gaming Commission’s more recent effort to strip the President’s license over its weak financial performance. In that matter, Pinnacle has requested a hearing, which is likely to happen later this spring. But it could open a window for Pinnacle to propose improvements to the President, or even, potentially, to move it to a new site.

After eight months of staring down powerful Missouri regulators over the fate of the President Casino, the Las Vegas-based gaming company agreed Wednesday to close the ailing downtown riverboat by July 1. The move comes as a surprise, one that could have broad implications for St. Louis’ $1 billion-a-year casino industry.

In the last few weeks, McNary said, Pinnacle general counsel Jack Godfrey reached out to the commission and proposed a deal. Pinnacle would give up the license. The commission would drop its disciplinary proceedings. Everyone would move on. It is unclear what changed Pinnacle’s mind.

Some reasoned that the decision to stop fighting the Missouri gaming regulators might be, in part, to not wanting to alienate state regulators, not just because of the two other casinos they own here, but also because of casinos they operate in other states. The Post also pointed to statement made by Pinnacle:

Godfrey said the decision came simply from shifting priorities. Pinnacle has opened two big, new casinos in St. Louis in a little more than two years. Pouring time and money into the President was no longer smart business. “We looked at the situation and decided to allocate our resources to productive pursuits,” he said. “We’ve sort of agreed to disagree and to resolve this matter,” Godfrey said. “

Many people voted in favor of Proposition A because of the mistaken belief that a cap of 13 casinos in Missouri would keep one out of Cape Girardeau, Sugar Creek or Chain of Rocks. Countless times during the campaign against Prop A, every effort was made to explain this very scenario, yet so many people voted ‘Yes’ thinking they were keeping a casino out of their back yard. Missouri families find themselves in a situation where a new mega casino can be built anywhere along the Missouri or Mississippi Rivers, putting them in terrible risk of serious gambling related problems. Now, more than ever, you need to contact your local Missouri Senators and House Representatives and encourage them support new legislation that prevents any new casinos from being built.

With the passage of Missouri Proposition A, the ability to guarantee that State ID cards are being checked as patrons enter casinos has seriously diminished. Before Proposition A passed, an ID was required to get a boarding pass and each and every patron who wished to board the boats had to have a boarding pass. Now, Proposition A simply requires that identification be checked if a patron looks underage. Unfortunately, underage gambling has increased and The St Louis Post Dispatch is reporting huge fines against some of Missouri’s biggest casinos:

Missouri casinos have seen an increase in underage gamblers since identification requirements changed as part of Proposition A last fall. And on Wednesday, the Missouri Gaming Commission made two of the state’s biggest casino companies pay for it. Commission members voted to fine Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. $60,000, for underage violations at its Lumière Place Casino in downtown St. Louis, and Ameristar Casino $25,000, for violations at its facility in Kansas City.

[E]ach casino handles ID checks a little differently, and that’s a troubling sign, commissioners said. “We need to move forward on a unified system of checking IDs,” said James Mathewson, chairman of the commission. “We’ve got a problem. And we seem to be addressing it. But we’re addressing it in six different directions.” The commission plans to discuss the matter further at its October meeting.”

Mathewson’s 2002 reports filed with the Ethics Commission show he received $15,800 in contributions. Of that amount, $11,124 either came directly from casino interests or can be connected to a gambling industry lobbyist.

The October 2002 report shows Mathewson receiving $9,225 in contributions, with $5,475 coming from gambling interests. The contributions include

The state repealed a $500-in-two-hours loss limit at casinos in the hopes of generating much needed revenue for the education system. The projections had the repeal being the key to over $100 million in additional revenue, according to the Missouri Gaming Commission.

Now, the Commission has lowered that projection to only $30 million after factoring in what the economy has done to the casino industry.

The gaming commission has tried to blame the economy for why they cant provide the “guaranteed money” to our local schools they promised the voters of Missouri. The Business Journal continues:

They insist that their original projections were correct, but that the recession changed everything. “Those were pre-recession projections,” said Executive Director of the Missouri Gaming Commission, Gene McNary.

Plaintiffs alleged the ballot question amounted to unlawful “logrolling” that forced voters to decide yes or no on multiple unrelated issues by casting only a single vote. A three-judge panel of judges from the Western District Missouri Court of Appeals in Kansas City disagreed.

They said Proposition A, which eliminated Missouri’s unique loss-limit rule that restricted gamblers to a buy-in of no more than $500 every two hours, raised casino taxes by one percent to 21 percent of gross revenues, eliminated mandatory use of identity cards by gamblers, and capped the number of casinos statewide at 13 all fell under the broad umbrella of “regulation of gambling.”

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